Posted
by
Unknown Lameron Wednesday March 27, 2013 @10:13AM
from the thank-kosh dept.

Via Engadget, comes a press release that might bring joy to fans of science fiction dismayed by years without any new scifi shows: "Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Race fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season."
Hopefully it'll end up available on DVD eventually, for us poor GNU/Linux users who are not worthy enough for Netflix (or: to any Netflix engineers reading, make it work).

I think you missed the part where there's no graphics acceleration and it sucks.

Also, I really just want a DRM-free RTMP stream that I can use with xbmc. Or, hell, throw some trivial drm on there that you know is broken and just look the other way like Amazon and Hulu. Until then... I guess Netflix doesn't get my money, and I will be sad that there is no legal way for me to watch JMS return to television.

You obviously have a job, so you can afford a Windows HTPC where XBMC can launch Netflix.

I'm kind of surprised, though, that nobody has come up with a scheme for using a Windows VM as an external player for Netflix on Linux. Netflix works fine on XP in VMware at high resolutions, with smooth playback. It should be relatively trivial to script vmware player to fire off iexplore pointed to the particular playback page. You can already browse/search netflix from Linux.

4 months of "working" is still Alpha/Beta stage in FOSS time. WINE is great and a lot of blood, sweat and tears has been put into the effort but in the end, it's a recipe for disaster if you have read incantations from the Necronomicon (wget+curl+./configure+make+make install|patch -p1|at>cron|bash -x/bin/sh|blah blah blah...) just to get it working. On other platforms, it's click+download+install+watch movie. If it's this way on that (godforsaken) Boxee-Box, why is it not this way for Linux?

Yes, there's a PPA to do all the heavy lifting for you but the first kernel/library update that comes along is going to leave your Netflix with a bleeding head wound until someone can get around to hacking things together again. Don't get me wrong, it's great that we have people willing to put the time and effort into this stuff but having a hacked-together-binder-twine-duct-tape solution is a piss-poor reason to not strive for native platform integration. I'd really like to hear the reasons why Netflix (and Amazon prime and Hulu for that matter) seem to be too braindead to figure out a viable Linux platform solution. No talent? Can't get the DRM right? Flash too screwed up? Can't figure out permissions? Prefer backslashes?

The main reason I'm commenting is to affirm this statement.
Netflix has been working for a long time on a couple of my systems using the wine solution.
AND get this crazy folks
linux, virtualbox, old windows license = also working, for an even longer time - which is just as much cheating as wine, but come on, this isn't hard.
I have even had netflix working on an old blackberry running BBOS6 - though technically that was just a stream from a linux host system I could still control it with the blackberry.
T

1. I'm running kubuntu, and the instructions are for (ugh) Unity2. I already have Flash installed and they want me to use the Microsoft flash (silverlight) that's only used on Netflix and maybe 3 other sites on the entire internet? All the TV networks use Flash, why do Netflix have to be such dicks?3. Are they going to give me a free copy of Wine? It isn't like NetFlix is free!4. Fuck 'em, if I have to jump through hoops and pay more than a Windows user to watch it I'm not going to bother, this will be on T

Hopefully having been burned by the collapse of PTEN and then getting bent over by TNT, JMS negotiated a contract that will avoid immediate cancellation... because I want some good scifi that wasn't made 15+ years ago, and there's only one man left who can do it...

Wachowskis = each part of an episodic thing they work on is worse than the one that came before

So either the strengths of one will compensate for the weaknesses of the other, or it's going to start out as on okay show with some promise but a lot of problems to overcome and then go downhill from there.

In all fairness... most shows take a couple seasons to hit their stride. I still remember watching the first episode of Star Trek: TNG and thinking that it stunk and I completely gave up on the show at that point. I then rejoined the party in season 2 and ended up loving the series, for the most part.

Also, how many episodic things have the Wachowskis worked on? I can only think of the Matrix films. Maybe there are things out there I haven't seen yet.

In all fairness... most shows take a couple seasons to hit their stride.

What on earth gave you this idea? Most shows, if they don't hit their stride by the end of the pilot, there isn't a season two. I don't remember the first season of Star Trek: TNG (been waaayyyy too long), but that was riding on the Star Trek name and fanbase. I don't think that show is indicative of greater trends in television.

So? they are genetically male.
self identification is bullshit. You don't go changing definition because it suits you. It's left over pop psychology form the 70s.
It's OK if you want to surgically change you gender, I don't care about that. but don't go around changing terms and definitions.

What does "genetically male" mean? 46,XY? Congratulations, you just excluded men with 47,XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) and 47,XYY (XYY syndrome) as "not male". Presence of a Y chromosome? Congratulations, women with 46,XY who lack the SRY gene (Swyer syndrome) are now "male". Presence of the SRY gene? Congratulations, 46,XY women with SRY but non-functional testosterone receptors (CAIS, complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) are now "male". And those are merely some of the conditions that are diagnosed by hormones and genitalia, without even looking at the giant ball of complexity that is the brain.

Self-identification of gender isn't bullshit 70's pop psychology. It's a practical consideration: science doesn't currently know what triggers male versus female identity in the brain. We know there's a surge of prenatal testosterone in the male fetus, followed by another testosterone surge a few weeks after birth, and that these two surges seem to trigger changes in the brain, but beyond that... hell if we know. We don't even know to what degree male identity is controlled by those testosterone surges versus direct action of SRY, or how many specific biological components there are in the brain that need to be affected. We don't know which circuits in the brain control self-identity ("I am a man/woman") versus proprioception ("my mental body map expects to receive sense data from male/female genitals") versus presentation ("other people see my behavior as feminine/masculine") versus orientation ("I am attracted to women/men"), if there are other categories than the ones I listed, where the lines are between these categories, or how blurry those lines are. Given how stable they are, we can infer that they're hardwired, which means that they must be phenotypes set during development; yet, the easiest way for a doctor to find out how genotype became phenotype in any particular patient is for the doctor to ask that patient to say their own gender identity.

My understanding is that the Wachowskis were still the ones who wrote the abomination that was the final Matrix movie. Studios will always meddle, but few writers/directors are given as much artistic license as the Wachowskis were given. It's obvious that Warner Bros. didn't meddle enough -- they have interns that could have identified the Revolutions screenplay as crap.

Who still watches netflix on their computers, anyways? At least half the blu-ray players on the market today can play netflix out of the box. Every major game console can as well. Quite a few TVs have it built-in now, too. Why on earth would you want to watch it on your computer?

I have two htpc's (AMD A-10 and A-8 and Linux Mint 14 KDE). One at home and one at work. Watch online content, Netflix, Hulu and play Stream. With 700+ dvd's who needs a BluRay player? Skipped right over it to all digital. Thanks....

My computer is attached to my TV and does more than just Netflix. Plus, if there is an update to the software platform Netflix uses which breaks your smart TV / games console / Blu-Ray player, do you think they will update it? No, they'll tell you to buy the newest version and throw your old one away.

My 5 year old Samsung 37" has YouTube, NetFlix, Sky Go, iPlayer, etc etc etc ad nauseum because it is a dumb TV.

Actually, smart TVs, game consoles and blue ray players are regularly updated. Hell, my panasonic TV even can stream freagin CrunchyRoll, and that gets updates almost instantly. Rokus even have indie developers making channels for it and updating them regularly.

Even the freagin Nintendo DS gets regular updates for its streaming apps...

I like how Netflix delivered "House of Cards" in one shot. That's how TV shows should be. No more Neilsen ratings crap. There are SO many great shows that were axed because of prime-time competition. I hope this model will work and become the norm for TV entertainment and kill those NBC/CBS/ABC/ and other networks.

Oh. Warehouse is shit. Eureka is shit after the 3rd season. Fringe is ok but inconsistent and the ending doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Stargate Universe was good but got cancelled. Heroes was meh, and hardly sci-fi. V was good, but again, cancelled. Dollhouse was good but... you guessed it... cancelled. Seems anything good gets cancelled. I have high hopes for JMS and the Wachowskis. Hopefully it's good and by some miracle doesn't get cancelled.

Warehouse is shit.actually, it's not. Its decent writing, and consistent with interesting characters.It's a well put together show.Now, subjectively you may not like it, but that doesn't make it shit.Learn the different between good/bad and like/don't like.

"Seems anything good gets cancelled. "OR you a hipster who only like things becasue they get cancelled.

Can't really say I miss space sci-fi. Sure, I loved stargate universe, firefly and defying gravity, but space is not a necessity for a good sci-fi. Perhaps in some years when they can do something that is actually new. There can be only SO many weekly episodes of yet another planet and/or new aliens.;-)

Speaking of which.. you know they recently revived Red Dwarf? I guess that sort of counts like a space sci-fi.

Haven't actually seen the new episodes yet.. hmm, better get around to that some day.

Makes me set my expectations low, if religious mystery is already communicated in such prominent a line. As much as I liked B5, JMS's embracing of everything religious and metaphysical was in my opinion the most annoying aspect of the series. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to find out whether my prejudice will be proven right or wrong!

I'll still give it a shot, given the fact that the origins of production are getting away from the typical mainstream model that Sci-Fi (excuse me, Syfy) follows. But when I saw "souls hunted", my first thought was, "OMG! More Ghost Hunters garbage!"

JMS is an atheist from what I can tell in the various things he's posted on the internet (he's done a lot of online discussions). I think he included relgious and metaphysical stuff in B5 to show how people latch onto religious ideas and values and use them to guide their actions because that is a real phenomenon regardless of whether you believe in the reality espoused by a given religion. Religious ideas have a hand in driving all sorts of conflicts in the real world (and conflicts are important elements

Yup. JMS has stated he doesn't believe in God, and the rest of parent post is dead on as well. However, he does acknolwedge that religon exists, and even did some speculation into what that would look like with alien species. That's the kind of thing Sci-Fi is supposed to do. What he didn't do is ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, like was done in Star Trek.

GP was essentially complaining that B5 wasn't Trek. It his perrogative to prefer that narrative I suppose, but it doesn't make other narratives ba

sigh If you're going to start up a 10 year old argument, at least look into what has been said before.

The Mimbari believed in that soul stuff. That doesn't make it true, just true for them. In fact, if you watched the episode Soul Hunter, you would have seen another species that believed very differently than the Mimbari about souls (with the predictable unblinking hatred from the Mimbari, much like you see from many other religons when their practices are incompatible, for example Mormon post-mortem "ba

Nonsense. Religion isn't going away, nor should it. Roddenberry's biases is one aspect of his work that dates it. In general, one of Scifi's greatest flaws is despite its portrayal of fascinating scenarios and technological wonders it is difficult to apply to actual people because its main characters are often not people. Instead they are agnostic idealogues that come across as shallow. Its wooden/unrealistic portrayal of human depth due to many authors who insist in creating a caricature of religion for th

Even if you can't get Netflix working under Linux, you can always buy an AppleTV or Roku box for under $100 and run Netflix on that. The experience is superior anyway, no plugins or updates, Netflix runs really well and you can easily attach it to any TV.

I run several flavors of Linux at home and work and am disappointed that Netflix doesn't work natively under Linux. Rather than fudging around with a virtual machine or trying to get things working under Wine, I walked into my local electronics store and paid $70 for a nice blu-ray, internet enabled player. A Smart TV box. I now watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube and more without taking a hit on my laptop performance.

You have to postulate working anti-gravity without acknowledging the ramifications of that technology. Or spend more on wirework and/or CGI than can be coped with by a standard show's budget.

And you have to find plots that haven't been done before. Without resorting to reversing the polarity of the neutron flow or getting this cheese to Sickbay. There's what, about 800 episodes of Trek in all its incarnations, plus Galactica old and new, Babylon 5, and stuff that only made very short runs, S:AAB, Space Rangers etc.

All the science fiction from the last decade I can think of is earth-based, and I don't think it's because it's easier or cheaper to make, although it probably is. I think much of it is because any time someone comes up with an idea for a space-based series, it just sounds like Star Trek, The Nth Generation, or Babylon 6.

You might want to read the news...
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/03/16/1836233/netflix-to-start-creating-original-content [slashdot.org]
House of Cards was the first series and is top notch. Amazon is doing the same thing (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417007,00.asp), as is Youtube (http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/2043252/original-content-coming-to-youtube) and Hulu (http://blog.hulu.com/2013/01/08/2013-original-and-exclusive-series-preview/).
This is one of the most exciting trends in video entertainment today.

House of cards is moderately good -- better than most TV fare -- but underplays the level of corruption in Washington. We haven't seen any depiction of entrenched values and religious fuckery, either, and those are part and parcel of Washington's current operations.

In the SF vein, news that would make me (and a lot of other people, I'm guessing) smile is someone pulling Firefly back together. IMHO, that show was the most consistently well done SF show ever. It had everything; it was quirky enough to be inte

pulling Firefly back together.
Everyone has moved on. Notably Nathan Fillion and Josh Whedon have very big and lucrative gigs. No matter how affectionately they talk about Firefly, neither of them is likely to be able to do it. And Fillion is noticeably less lean and mean now.

I loved the show too, but they got another shot in Serenity and blew it. Time for the fans to give it up.

Well, I meant "do better than something I'd be prone to watch from the traditional producers of the televised media." I have no intention of comparing anything to either of those shows due to the fact my sense of integrity would require me to actually seek out and experience them first hand. -shudder-

I think the great thing about House of Cards is that it's the first TV Series I've seen that didn't have to go through all the censors or ratings boards whatsoever. I think this allows them to make it more true to life. There's swearing, drugs, violence, and even some brief nudity. Also, because it wasn't made for TV, each episode is exactly as long as it needs to be. It rarely seemed like they added content simply because they needed to make the episode longer.

JMS produced Babylon-5 for 5 years on a shoe-string budget with his own production company for an impoverished basic cable channel. I don't see why he'd have a lot of trouble pulling off the same feat for Netflix.

They financed "House of Cards", an adaptation of a UK political series, moved to Washington, starring Kevin Spacey recently. Pretty good. Also seem to have partnered with a Norwegian company to produce "Lilyhammer", about NY mafiosi, Steven Van Zandt, hiding out in Norway, which wasn't bad.

AMC was just doing what its name suggests, running old movies, until they started with Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead. So this model can produce good stuff.

The Spam problem has been somewhat annoying, and when I saw the opportunity to keep the bot from locking in the first spot I jumped on it. And then followed up with an on-topic reply to self to give the community a place to comment guaranteed to be above the bot. It appears to be working.

It's good if politics interests knows and you have a decent attention span. You do have to pay attention to the show, but I've watched the series to the end and I think it's was worth it. Everything fits together at the end.

i only pay for cable from time warner cable and get free HD quality broadcast channels over the same wire as the internet comes in since they aren't encrypted. that's how my wife watches a lot of her shows

Yeah, while it is annoying that Netflix doesn't work under *general* Linux, it does work under *some* Linux-ish operating systems. Like on my Android phone/tablet, my "smart" TV (which does run Linux) and apparently soon in some Chromebooks. Yes, they should move away from Silverlight. Yes, the UI on the "smart" TV leaves a lot to be desired (why on earth should I plug in a USB keyboard I can only use the arrow keys and enter, instead of you know, typing?). But all in all, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

A copy of the material that originated on DVD is still going to be better than any of those options. Many of those devices aren't "current' or feature complete. All of them depend on a constant and robust network connection. Many of them have interfaces that are just crap.

This is why it is important to not run your life (our country) based on other peoples views of you. Granted, since presidents are elected, it is a little different. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, though, a vocal group hate us. They have their reasons and there really isn't much we can do to change their minds. If we rush to help, we are imperialists, if we don't, it cause we are cold and only care about ourselves. It is easy due to the size and influence of our country to find things to

If by "solved" you mean that a software engineer grad student and his pocket protector stand an even chance of knocking it out in a spare weekend then yes my good sir, that problem is solved.

Assuming most people can copy/paste, it is extremely easy.Open a terminal from the menu and paste "sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio" Enter your password when prompted. Then "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop"

It is now installed in your programs menu.

I really don't see how this is more difficult then installing in windows.

Some people are more demanding. A lot of those people read Slashdot. This demanding nature also includes the TV watching experience. Slashdot users are much more likely to be early adopters of things like Tivo, HTPCs, and streamers.

I would love to be able to liberate a Netflix show from the Netflix user interface.